I have a 5 month old avocado plant that is now in soil. My leaves are turning brown from the tips on up or actually they are turning brown but they are shriveling and turning in on themselves. I realized that i havent been allowing it to dry out enough. I am letting the soil dry now. I have been reading about salt accumulating in the soil. Do you think the leaves are turning brown because of the over watering or because of salt? If it is salt, what should i do? I dont want to water it any more until it drys out. The plant is indoors and is sprouting new leaves rapidly. It is the big ones at the top of the plant that are turning brown- the ones that are new but fully grown. I have only had 3 leaves turn in about 1 month. Also, the bottom leaves are showing some yellow color bewteen veins. The top leaves are perfect except for the ones that fell. The leaves that are showing the yellowing at the bottom have not dropped or turned brown. just the ones at the top.
Moadiem-Avocados love rich, sandy loam soil that is well drained. If this plant has been sprouted from seed, be prepared to graft it from a producing avocado tree, as it will not bear fruit on its own. I have no idea how the first avocado was produced, but they must be grafted. The good news is you can pick your favorite variety as the donor. I have seen an avocado tree with at least 12 (twelve) different varietys grafted on it, allowing the proud owner to have fruit available all year long. p.s. - Sacto may be too cold, do you have mature avocado trees in your neighborhood?
Seedlings do bear fruit (when old enough and pollinated, in a suitable cultural environment), of course, it just isn't known how good it will be until it appears - seedlings vary in characteristics, just as human children do. With a grafted clone you know beforehand what the fruit characteristics are.
There can't be much soil in that pot, it looks hardly any bigger than an avocado stone! Put it in a much larger pot so it has some root space to grow in. It also looks a little etiolated (starved of bright light) - can you give it a position with more light?
No mites, it does get a lot of sun, I will repot it and i will look into grafting. Thank you for the reply's. So, if there is a lot of salt in the soil, how do i get rid of it?
Don't worry about 'salt' - there's no reason to do it with your plant or soil mix (it refers to another situation entirely and is unlikely to matter with your plant). What you should worry about is finding a tall container, and when you repot, cut back the tap root (big main one) by 1/2 to encourage other roots to grow from up near the trunk. Don't be afraid to water if you've added lots of grit to the soil because it'll drain quickly and you can't treat an avo. like a succulent - they do need to be kept at least slightly moist throughout (I water mine every couple of days, but am very careful not to use plain potting soil which is all peaty and holds water too long). Give it every ounce of sun all day that you can.
If mineral salts have built up in soil repot in fresh soil. White stuff on top of potting soil can be mold rather than salts. Plant burned by salts will have dead leaf edges with deposited salts visible between live interior and dead exterior of leaf blade.
